


at the verberant core of music

by indigostohelit



Category: Narcos (TV), Narcos: Mexico (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fix-It, Phone Sex, Porn with Feelings, Power Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-10-24 06:10:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17699114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigostohelit/pseuds/indigostohelit
Summary: But what he feels is neither of these. Instead—impossibly, infuriatingly—he respects her.Worse: he likes her.(An AU where Miguel doesn't send the government to kill Falcón in front of Isabella, and also other things go differently.)





	at the verberant core of music

**Author's Note:**

> I Can't Believe I Wrote Fix-It Fic. 
> 
> As per usual this is the fault of the gremlins in the socks chat, and our collective and terrible decisions. Also as per usual: this is about characters from the show Narcos: Mexico, and not about any real people living or dead. Translation Convention applies, and dialogue should be considered to be "canonically" in Spanish, whether it's textually in Spanish or English. 
> 
> Warning for very mild misogyny and very mild discussion of misogyny and homophobia. The title is from Dorothy Sayers' _Gaudy Night_ , Peter Wimsey writing to Harriet Vane. (I know, I know.)

If he wanted to sleep with her it would be one thing. Miguel fucks women, when he wants to. He fears God, but he fears his body, too, and he knows better than to ignore its stupid, animal needs so much that they drive him to distraction. Better to get himself inside a woman, fuck her as long he wants, and spend when he’s satisfied. Better to do that, and leave the woman in the bed where she belongs, and clean himself off, and return himself to the important things of the world.

If he loved her it would be another; still, though, nothing insurmountable, nothing he couldn’t absorb like a blow and breathe through and move on from. He could kill her, if he loved her. Or, more easily, he could leave his wife for her. He could do better than keep her in a bed: he could keep her in a house, set her to making children, see her every few weeks and satisfy her with gifts and money and with the kind of stability he’s never known, the steady and sedentary heaviness that settles like lead in the bones and keeps men from wandering, makes them slow and stupid, weighs them down into old routes and favorite armchairs and coffins, and stops up the part of them that does the dreaming. He could put her in such a home, if he loved her, and make a wife out of her, and after years or decades know the relief of not loving her any more.

But what he feels is neither of these. Instead—impossibly, infuriatingly—he respects her.

Worse: he likes her.

He’d thought about telling his new PRI friend to burst in on her negotiations with Falcón, to ruin them. To ruin her. Giving Isabella this task is an earthquake he can’t see the aftershocks of; not just because he owes her, not just because she knows it, but because the act of earning his debt has made her something more than a pawn in a game where Miguel is very much used to being the only player. If he had stopped her attempt at diplomacy in its tracks—she’d have been angry, yes. But anger he can deal with. Uncertainty he doesn’t touch.

But he hadn’t. And she isn’t. And he is uncertain—the most uncertain he’s been in a long time, since the day his wife choked out a long breath and he felt death pause to see if he wanted to follow, since the day he was shoved into a car in the desert and heard death's silent footsteps like a coyote's behind, since the day he turned to a cargo hold in Nicaragua with the wind in his hair and blood on his lip and saw death waiting for him, packed into white bricks, ready at last to be no longer his predator but his prey.

He is uncertain. And he doesn’t know whether it’s death that will come, at the end of this choice, or something worse.

The phone on his desk rings. He lifts it to his ear. “Bueno?” he says, as if he doesn’t know who it is.

“Félix,” says Isabella.

He removes his cigarette from his mouth and taps it, very gently, on his ashtray. “Isabella. Are you calling with good news?”

“He took the deal,” she says. “Ten million and two percent. Everything you wanted.”

He expects relief. Instead, something in his stomach curls; his heartbeat picks up. “Everything I wanted,” he says, and, “Good.”

“I’m glad you could take the call,” she says. Through the hiss and crackle of static, he finds himself wondering about her—whether she’s calling from a pay phone, from Falcón’s house, from her bedroom. Whether she’s leaning against the glass wall of a phone booth, or lying on her bed, her shoes kicked off. Her leg hitched up. “I didn’t know if you would be in the office.”

The room is dark, his papers long since unreadable in the dimness. He turned out the light an hour ago. She’d guessed that he would come back here to wait for her, and guessed correctly.

“I had work to do,” he says. “You were lucky.”

“I am lucky,” she says, “tonight.”

Isn’t she just. Twenty percent of a plaza, and a successful negotiation on his behalf, and a foot in the door of the most dangerous and profitable business in the world; and still she manages to sound as if the best thing that’s happened to her tonight is a conversation with him. And still—still!—more than half of him wants to believe her. That’s the kind of luck that makes men rich, the kind that makes them deadly. The truest kind of luck, which is no luck at all.

“How did you do it?” he says.

“How did I do what?” she says. Her tone is low and pleased. She knows what he means; she wants to hear him say it.

He sighs out smoke. In the darkness, it's more heat than shape. “Convince him,” he says. “He must have wanted more. Especially from—” He lets the pause linger. This game is dangerous, too, more dangerous than the game of business deals and territory change. If it’s a different game at all. “A friendly face.”

“What are you saying?” she murmurs. Her voice is difficult to pick up on; he finds himself closing his eyes, straining to hear her. “Are you asking for negotiation tips, Félix?” She lingers on his name. “Or are you asking for something else?”

Someone across the street clicks on a light. The room is washed in faint, yellow shadow, his desk dappled under the blinds. “You said you’d been thinking about what you wanted,” he says.

She says, slowly, “I have.”

So much more dangerous—so much more deadly. But he owes her, and twenty percent of a plaza isn’t all she’s going to demand. He can play this game, or he can lose it. That’s it; that's all. What he can or can’t stop himself from feeling doesn’t enter into it. It doesn’t have to.

He says, “What do you want me to be asking you for?”

There’s a silence.

“Of course I sucked his cock,” says Isabella.

Miguel inhales. Exhales. Then he deliberately and slowly stubs his cigarette out in the bowl.

“How?” he says.

“Miguel Ángel,” says Isabella. Through the phone her laughter is a soft crackle. “Do you need a diagram?”

She knows what he meant; she’s delaying him. Miguel considers, briefly, saying so; but he doesn’t know why she’s doing it, and if he asks, he won’t find out.

“Did you do it slowly?” he says, and lets his voice go soft, like hers. “Did you make him enjoy it?”

“Did I enjoy it, do you mean?” she says.

He lets his eyes close. “I don’t think you’ve enjoyed it yet.”

“Maybe I was waiting for you,” says Isabella.

He feels himself smile, helplessly. God—God! He knows he’s being played, and she knows he knows; and yet he can’t keep himself from taking the pleasure she wants him to take anyway. To know himself so well and still to be unable to gain control—

“How patient of you,” he says. “Were you so patient with your mouth on his cock?”

“With him?” she says, dismissive. “There was no need.”

She expects him to say it, and so he does. “But with a different man—”

“With a different man,” she says, and he can hear her smiling, “yes. Yes, Miguel Ángel, I would take my time.” A pause. He wonders if she’s wearing a skirt—pants—one of those beautiful jumpsuits, the ones that curve and lick the culo that so captivated Chepe Londoño, but which would surely make it difficult for her to slide her hand down, to press against—unless she wants to rock against her hand through the fabric, the rough friction of it on her clit, keeping her just on the wrong side of sensitive—

He hears her breath stutter. Christ, is she? She is. He can’t help but imagine her, how she must look, all her glittering intensity focused down to a single point, to her own pleasure; can’t help but see her eyelashes dark on her cheeks, her tongue resting on her red lip, how her hips move, so responsive, so needy; can’t help but think about how he could touch her, just lightly, and she’d go where he wanted, fall on her back for him, spread her legs, how her body would want him, how she’d want him; can’t help—

God. God, he can’t do this. He can’t let himself do this.

“Tell me,” he says, and is surprised at the hoarseness in his own voice, “tell me—teach me, Isabella. How does one suck cock well?”

A long pause. He tips his head back, stares at the ceiling. He’s managed to throw her off, for once.

“For a man I like?” she says, doubtful. Doubtful is good. Confusion is good. At least she can’t have any better handle on the situation than he does.

“Any man,” he says. “Anyone with whom you want to—negotiate.”

Another pause, longer. Maybe she’ll hang up the phone. Maybe she’ll tell him to go to hell, and end the call, and it won’t matter that he can’t do it himself.

“Well,” she says. “It depends on the man."

Her breath is no longer ragged. Still, he wishes she would lose that tone in her voice, low and rough. “Oh?” he says.

“Some men,” says Isabella, “they like you to hold them down. On a mattress, against a wall. They like your hand on their hip, or they like you to scratch them.”

“To scratch them?” Miguel says.

“It makes them sensitive,” says Isabella. “They like a little pain with their pleasure. Sometimes they like to see that I’ve left a mark.”

She’s speaking of herself again, and, as usual, finding the most dangerous possible direction to take the conversation. Miguel says, “My nails won’t leave a mark.” Flat, cold. Aloof. He needs to cut her off.

Another pause, not quite as long. He wishes he could see her face; he feels like he’s fighting with a hand tied behind his back. “No,” she says. “You would do it differently.”

“You said it depends on the man whose cock it is,” he says, pushing.

“I did,” she says. A rush of static—a sigh. “Some men like you to swallow them down right away. To do everything you can do to get them off as soon as possible, as well as possible. But other men—they like you to struggle, a little. To look surprised, or nervous, and talk about how big they are. How you’ve never seen one this big before.”

It should feel as if she’s mocking him. It doesn’t; he laughs, quietly, and she laughs too, and he curls and uncurls his fingers on his thigh.

“They like you to choke, men like that,” she says. “Not too much—not so much that you can’t get on with the job. Like I said: just a little. Enough that you look like you’re in pain. Like you’re hurting, but you’re doing it anyway.”

He knows, then, and says it: “Like Falcón.”

“Falcón,” says Isabella, “asked me why I had finally gotten on my knees for you.”

He says nothing.

“Some men like,” she says, thoughtfully, “for you to, in the middle, reach around—behind. They won’t tell you they want it, most of them. They’ll make you guess.”

“How do you guess?” says Miguel.

She hums. “There are signs. A man who talks too loudly about what a man he is, too angrily. One who’s the opposite—who hangs on your arm and hunches over and whispers and creeps, like he’s afraid of something. A man who asks you for too much, or for the strangest things, and doesn’t seem to enjoy any of them.” A flutter in her voice, half-laugh, half-sigh. “Most men enjoy it. Or their bodies do. But they don’t want it—they don’t let themselves want it. You have to ask yourself not just who a man is—”

“—but who he thinks he is,” says Miguel.

“Yes,” she says, and pauses. “You understand.”

He knows desire; he’s made a living out of knowing desire. There are very few people in the world who know it with the intimacy and intuition that he does. He is rarely able to speak to them.

“I understand,” he says.

She takes a breath. “Some men—some men like to take control. Do you know any men like that?”

The bait’s too easy; he won’t rise to it. He says, “Do you?”

“What you do with a man like that,” she says, “is pretend to do nothing. Let him have his fun. He’ll want to touch your face—tug your hair. You’ll let him.”

“Won’t it hurt?” he says.

“Maybe you won’t mind,” says Isabella. “Maybe you’ll like it.”

He rolls his neck, runs a hand along his leg. “And then what?”

“And then, Miguel,” she says, “you would find out whether you like having your face fucked.”

His hand stops. He presses his fingers into the flesh of his thigh. “I don’t,” he says, “think anyone is meant to like it.”

Her laugh, a wash of white noise, just unintelligible enough that he can’t tell whether she means it. “You’d be surprised.”

“Would I?” he says. He means it to be dismissive. It isn’t.

“Would you like it?” she says, thoughtful. It’s not what he asked; he starts to speak up, to correct her, but she ignores him. “I’m sure you’d like how good you would be at it. I’m sure you would like what a good cocksucker you would be, Miguel, you seem like the kind of man who takes pride in a talent.” He swallows his gasp, squeezes his eyes shut, digs his nails into his palm. “I don’t know if you would like it, though, if a man didn’t let you touch him.” Her voice drops lower. “So much of what’s good about sucking cock—what’s really good, Miguel, what gets you hot and leaves you wanting—is knowing how much power you have. How good you’re making the other person feel. How they want you to keep going, how much of what they need is in your hands. You can make them beg you for it. You can make them do almost anything.”

He can’t help it; he can’t help himself. He eases down his zipper and runs his hand over his cock—just lightly, just to take the edge off, just to—oh, God, God forgive him—just to make himself feel good. Only for a moment. Only one moment of weakness.

“But I don’t know how you’d like it,” she says, “someone fucking your mouth and holding you still. I recall you aren’t fond of being used. I don’t know if you could take it.”

A challenge. He tries to think whether to rise to it—to say _yes,_ to say _of course I could_ will be to let her know she’s gotten to him—to say _I couldn’t,_ to even say _I leave that to you_ will reveal him just as surely—and it’s harder and harder to think at all, with his nerves on fire like this, her voice low in his ear, his hand still on his cock, the unbearable relief of it.

“Is it difficult?” he manages.

“Difficult?” says Isabella. “No. If you can keep yourself from choking you can do it as long as you like. But I wonder whether you could keep yourself from choking on it, whether you could make yourself not fight back.” She laughs a little. “It would take some practice.”

Now she is making fun of him; and even still it takes all his control not to laugh along with her. God, if only she were angry at him—if only he had betrayed her, and she were angry at him, how easy it would be. If she were fighting him, if he had hurt her—if he could make himself hurt her—

Miguel’s spent so long trying so desperately not to think of the things he wants. Trying not to think of how he wants to run his hands up her thighs and make her gasp; how he wants to dance with her and smell her sharp perfume and feel her body sway against his, into his. But he wants so much, so much he’s kept locked away so well and for so long, and it’s spilling out of him like a flood after storm. He wants to watch her touch herself for his sake. He wants to peel her clothes off her, wants to stroke his cock and moan so she hears, so she’s silenced just from wanting him, he wants to shove her down on a bed and hold her wrists in place and—

—and fuck her; he wants to fuck her. He wants her to take his cock and like it. He wants her to beg him for more. He would do almost anything to have that from her.

He can’t stop himself from wanting it.

“Isabella,” he says, helplessly.

She makes a noise, almost inaudible. He closes his eyes and imagines her, tries to imagine her, how she looks, what she's doing, right now: her hips hitched up and open, wet down her thighs, her fingers already inside her. Her other hand pressing the phone to her ear, because she wants to hear him.

“What?” she says, breathless.

He runs a thumb around the head of his cock, and his tongue over his lower lip, and settles lower in his chair. “Talk to me,” he says.

She knows, now. Of course she knows. Still, she only says, her voice just a fraction deeper, “Talk to you about what?”

“Anything,” he says. He can hear his own voice, hoarse and rough. She must be able to hear it, too—what he’s doing; what she’s doing to him.

“Anything at all?” Isabella says, sweet. Too-sweet. There’s something he’s missing; some topic he should forbid. Something he should deny her.

He can’t think of it. He can’t think. “What is it?” he says, rough.

A creak; maybe a chair, maybe bedsprings. She’s making herself comfortable, just as he has. “Do you know why I asked for twenty percent of the plaza, Miguel?” she says.

Oh, God. “Money,” he says, instead of the truth. “Greed. A cut of the profits.”

She’s laughing, again, quietly. She knows him; that’s the fact of it, the fact that he can’t avoid, though he’s spent these years trying to. She knows him. She is one of the few people in the world who understands desire well enough to know him truly.

And she likes him.

“What you said when I asked,” she says. “What you said when I told you I’d earn it. You said— _then it’s yours._ I'm not greedy, Miguel.” Her voice drops further. “I just like your voice when you’re giving me what I want.”

Miguel comes as hard as he ever has in his life.

He blinks away stars for some time. When he returns to himself, she’s coming, too, in a series of punched-out little gasps that falter into heaving breaths.

His pounding heart is beginning to slow at last. He wipes his hand on a tissue, takes a deep breath. Blinks away the exhaustion eating at the edges of his vision.

He hadn’t intended this. If anything, the road ahead seems more uncertain than ever.

Still—he’s worked with worse.

Now that he can think of her clearly, now that he can think, he is—surprised, that she slept with Falcón. More than surprised. He’d seen her face when Matta had spoken of her as bait, before they’d gone to Colombia; he’d thought she was using this deal—using him—to establish herself, to transform herself into the sort of woman who doesn’t do that work, who doesn’t even spark the idea of it. If such a woman exists.

“About Falcón,” he says. “May I give you a piece of advice?”

He hears her little, disbelieving laugh; but she doesn’t mock him for not saying what he's just done, doesn’t sound angry or disappointed. “That seems fair,” she says, “since you value mine.”

He’s smiling again. Forcibly, he makes his mouth curl down, and says, “If you want a man to depend on you, it’s all right that he should trust you. But if you want him to negotiate with you—his trust will be poison to his respect.”

He hears her steady breath in the static: one, two. Three. “Miguel,” she says, “do you mean to tell me you were planning to let him live?”

It takes him a long second to regain control of himself: his lips, his lungs, his heart. He reaches, mindless, for the half-smoked cigarette still in the ash tray, and finds himself resting the pads of his fingers on the rippled glass of it, using its texture to ground him.

“After you went to such trouble?” he says.

“Not tonight,” says Isabella, derisive. “Months from now. A year.” He can hear her smiling. “Haven’t you learned to be patient?”

His cock, which is by no means able to to revive itself, is nevertheless making a serious effort. “I can’t kill a man for no reason,” he says, not meaning it.

“The man who dreamed an empire can find one,” she says, low and sweet. “Maybe you’ll discover that he’s been skimming money. Maybe you’ll discover that he’s been skimming product. Maybe you’ll discover that he’s been talking to the wrong Americans.” She pauses. “Maybe you’ll discover that he touched me.”

He squeezes the edge of the glass ashtray, closes his eyes. “It would be easy to know those things,” he says, “if I were close to someone he trusts.”

“Would it?” she says. Another smile, curling the edge of the word. Is hers as helpless as his? “And why would someone Falcón trusts help you?”

He says, “Do you mean to tell me you were planning to let him live?”

There’s a long silence. He opens his eyes, stares at the cracked ceiling, and feels pulsing within his chest the certain and doomed satisfaction of having finally, finally surprised her.

“I’m coming to the hotel,” she says, eventually.

“Tell reception to give you a key,” he says. “You’ll be staying the night.” Then he hangs up the phone.


End file.
